These Five Local Innovators are Changing Our World They turned “Aha!” ideas into real-life products. By Sylvia Whitman 3/1/2017 at 1:52am Published in the March-April 2017 issue of 941CEO Drinkable Energy for the Military Bruce Schlee CEO, Strike ForceInvention: Strike Force Energy Drink About six years ago, as a sideline to his main job of manufacturing robots that probe inside pipes, Bruce Schlee and his uncle, a Vietnam vet, began developing an energy drink for the military. The men took over one of Schlee’s vacant buildings, tinkered with flavorings, learned what Schlee calls “the intricacies of FDA certification,” and came up with a liquid concentrate packaged like restaurant ketchup packets. “It’s hard to ship cans of Red Bull or Monster...

At first glance, the gleaming white building on a quiet Sarasota side street looks like any doctor’s office. But inside, scientists in a ground-floor laboratory conduct research that could one day transform the human race’s long-running battle against infection — from annoying sinus irritations to deadly flesh-eating bacteria. Their work may seem straight out of a science-fiction movie: manipulating the human microbiome — the trillions of microbacterial cells on and in the body. These cells, which can adhere to almost any human surface — mouth to skin to gut — can glom together to form biofilm, a fortress that helps them resist the current antibiotic arsenal. The Quorum Biofilm Research Laboratory, part of the five-physician Hawthorne Clinic in Sarasota, is...

by Kate Johnsonpublished November 09, 2014 ATLANTA — A probiotic extract being developed from the human microbiome could offer drug-free topical therapy for patients with atopic dermatitis, and could protect against pathogenic biofilms, new research shows. In terms of restoring the damaged skin barrier, "it worked very nicely, equivalently to dexamethasone, yet it is not a steroid," said lead researcher Eva Berkes, MD, chief scientific officer for Quorum Innovations in Sarasota, Florida, which is developing the product. "The extract also showed activity against pathogenic biofilms, and has anti-inflammatory effects," added Bobban Subhadra, PhD, director of research and development for the company. The findings, presented in two posters here at the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology 2014, are "very promising,"...

Bioesse Probiotics Skin Care Line Only Probiotic Skin Care Line Made From Human Microbiome [January 5, 2016 – Sarasota, Florida] Daily exposures as common as stress, diet, and the environment can affect skin aging, possibly by affecting billions of health-promoting bacteria that normally live on our skin, called the skin microbiome. Additional research shows that maintaining a well-balanced skin microbiome with a daily dose of topical probiotics applied to the skin may be just as important as oral probiotics for a healthy GI tract. How do skin probiotics work? The tiny molecular messages packaged into probiotics fit skin cells like a lock-and-key, and send skin-balancing messages to help the skin to look younger, improve its hydration, and stimulate the skin...